


hello from the other side

by irishais



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 03:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10324724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishais/pseuds/irishais
Summary: Any port in a storm, but Xu is so much more than that to her. Quistis/Xu.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sissyhiyah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sissyhiyah/gifts).



 

 

It destroys them all, in the end. 

 

Her hands bleed vicious scarlet, tearing through the whisper-thin clouds that have turned to razor-blade edges every time she touches them (and it is an impossibility, not to touch, when you are caught running through them for the rest of eternity). 

 

**Time-compression-time-compression-time-compression** , drums a serenade in her chest,  **time-compression-time-compression.** The sorceress is dead, long live the sorceress. She is never going to escape. 

 

Quistis runs, and tangles herself in a strangling web of sky, the edges ripping through her skin, renting her open and gushing her blood into the void, this is how she dies, time compression, time compression, this is the end--

 

(this is how she dies, in clouds and fog and darkness, with the screaming bay of wolves at her heels.)

 

She wakes up with a hammering heart, sweaty palms, a scream doing the exact opposite of  _ dying  _ in the midnight air, tearing her to shreds. It feels like she will never stop screaming, hasn’t stopped screaming since the war ended and she was safe, safe, safe. 

 

A murmur, a groan, a shift, and Xu’s arms come around her. drawing her back down, holding her close, fingers carding through cornsilk hair. It’s too much, too much, too much. 

 

She buries her face in the sharpness of Xu’s collar, and wants to live there, instead, in the hollow of darkness and silence and the faint scent of cordite-vanilla, blended like an exotic perfume. At least she isn’t crying, as screams turn to hard breathing, a fight to catch up with her own lungs. 

 

Xu doesn’t move or panic or pull away, stays right where she is on her narrow sliver of mattress, Quistis curled in her lap like a petrified overgrown child. She is warm and soft and small, an ember in the night, her voice rough at the edges with sleep (or lack thereof). 

 

Murmured quietings in Esthari, the words falling water into Quistis’ panic and fear (it’s alright, it’s okay, shh, it’s alright, it’s okay--). Not the most eloquent, but it’s close to three in the morning, and the witching hour is only moments gone. 

 

Eventually, Quistis can breathe again, eventually, she can pull back in favor of settling her head along Xu’s thighs, pulling the quilt up over her body.  _ Please don’t let me sleep again _ , she begs the universe. 

 

It is a failed plea, but Xu is the safest of harbors, hand moving through her hair in gentle, steady rhythm, calm like the sea at low-tide.  _ Please don’t let me sleep-- _

 

She does not dream again, or if she does, she doesn’t remember it. It’s enough. It has to be enough. Love and friendship beat the witch, love and friendship is all they need-- 

 

They may have come back from the war bombed-out ruins of their former selves, time maligned, hearts ticking like clocks in a countdown to the mortality they had all somehow, magically, eluded-- death loves war, and SeeDs love taunting death, after all.

 

(this is how she dies, this is how she--)

 

Quistis moves, wakes Xu from where she’s dozed off sitting upright against the cool dorm wall, kisses her until her eyes flutter open. She is alive, she is alive. She has escaped hell, and come back in one piece. 

 

Xu breathes her name like a sigh. 

 

Ultimecia is a dream now, a figment-monster. Her friends are alive, and Xu loves her. Xu has always loved her, even when she’d thought there was something else with  _ someone  _ else. Xu loves her, even when she wakes up screaming from the monsters making chase in her head. 

 

Her mouth finds the line of Xu’s cheek, down her jaw, finds that steady-strong pulse beating in her throat-- at least someone here has herself together. 

 

The safest harbor. She follows Xu’s heartbeat, a resolute lighthouse in a storm. 

 

Quistis will always find her way back. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
